Cirrus@Austlit

'Saul turns off the bitumen onto the dirt road and drives due west. The ute rattles along over the corrugated track; its tyres rumble over cattle grids between immense pastures. The land before him flat and featureless; everything - the rocks, sand and thin scrub - leached pale by the sun. The sky cobalt but for a distant spittle of cloud to the south. Behind him, miniscule against the sky, a range of hills and a line of electricity pylons. He crests a rim where it seems the whole country suddenly drops away before him, so vast and flat and desolate he is overwhelmed by a sense of vertigo. A nothingness out there terrifying in its extent. And as he drives down into that nothingness, he knows his search has ended.' (Introduction)